Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/91

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Lionel Haweis

THE GREAT SURRENDER

In Memoriam: Canada,—Ypres, Battle of Langemarck, April 23rd, 1915

"Then, as you know, we buried our dead; the records began to be made, and the terrible cables started to work on the list of names for home."

HEAR, O ye nations!. . . .
The wandering billow combs
The tangle of our shores, whose guardian firs
In massed battalions' on the folded hills
Sweep up to where our immemorial snows,
Constant themselves, review inconstant seas;
And, as those snows, like and unlike are we. . . .

In us their frigid fire reluming stirs
A sparkling memory;
In us, God willing, manifestly shines
Their ancient steadfastness;
The ad in se their stern sanction fills
The promise to endure it. . . .

Natheless we,—more constant even than these,—
Called at our labours from our spacious plains,
Our forests, lakes and mines,
From cities as from mountain-fastnesses-
All hardy precincts where we have our homes;
As never yet now menaced by the pains
And penalties of injury from the foes
Of all nobility, and of us through ye . . .

Hear, O ye little nations! In His Name
Our gracious Mother called us, and we came!

These were our first, our best, a nation's wealth
Of manhood poured, our hostage of endeavour;—
We watched them till a hardier, holier health,